ATTACK WARNINGS IGNORED!
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| Sun, 09-19-2004 - 12:02pm |
From Vanity Fair July 2004
Interview with Richard Clarke
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Re: Conversation with Rice:
He says he told her that al-Qaeda was <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America’s No. 1 threat. In the book he writes that it seems she hadn’t heard the term before. Rice’s defenders pointed out that she spoke about Osama bin Laden in a radio interview in October 2000. “She obviously knew about bin Laden,†Clarke now says. “But it’s not just Condi. A lot of people….didn’t get the phrase ‘al-Qaeda.’â€
According to Clarke, Rice told him that she couldn’t see why the N.S.C. (National Security Council) should be worrying about things like “getting equipment and training to firemen around this country.��� (in case of a terrorist strike)
She told Clarke that she wanted him to focus on breaking up the N.S.C.’s Office of Transnational Threats, which he headed, and spinning out some of the jobs and getting back to the old N.S.C. model. She also told him that he did not need to go to the Principals’ meetings any longer. (this was a guy who had been the Counterterrorism Czar since 1992 or so and had been in the field for 30 years)
Clarke says the reduction of his responsibilities (which did not affect his paycheck) was significant because it sent a signal to the bureaucracy that counterterrorism was no longer as important as it had been in the Clinton administration.
Re: De-emphasizing counterterrorism
In fact, Clarke and his staff felt that counterterrorism was being shoved to the bottom of the agenda: “I was being told by people in the Pentagon they couldn’t get money. People in the Justice Dept were telling me they couldn’t get money….I was told terrorism was no longer on the priority list for the attorney general for priority issues.â€
Over at Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld had not replied to Clarke’s request for a briefing meeting in January. Rumsfeld was also attempting to scale back the D.O.D.’s (Department of Defense) special ops, war on drugs, and peacekeeping…..all the operations Clarke considered an essential part of fighting al-Qaeda on its own turf.
Re: Clarke’s memo to cut off Afghanistan
Clarke’s now famous January 2001 memo advocating a series of actions to “roll back†al-Qaeda, including cutting off its financing, helping such organization as the Northern Alliance fight it in Afghanistan, and breaking up international cells, seemed to languish, ignored, in people’s in-boxes. Finally it was discussed at the end of April, in a meeting of deputies chaired by Hadley, who wanted to reach a consensus among all the departments and agencies before formalizing policy. Clarke describes Hadley as a “very precise lawyer…You could light a nuclear bomb off under him and his hair wouldn’t get singed.†Reaching a consensus was bound to take time. The C.I.A., for instance was against Clarke’s suggestion to resume using the Predator, an unmanned plane, to spy on and possibly target al-Qaeda missile camps in Afghanistan, in part because a Predator had crashed the year before.
Re: Warnings to the president about planned attacks on the US
Meanwhile, in May and June the C.I.A. was getting increasingly scary intelligence reports that al-Qaeda was planning something big. Clarke sent Rice and her N.S.C. colleagues additional memos. At the same time, George Tenet was personally briefing the president about the reports.
Clark leans forward, “I’m not sure everybody has grasped this…Tenet on 40 occasions
in these morning meetings mentioned al-Qaeda to the president. Forty times, many of them in a very alarmed way, about a pending attack. And as far as I can tell from what has been said at the commission, on one of these occasions, one out of 40, the president must have said something like ‘Well, what are we going to do about it.’â€
On August 6, Bush received the page-and-a-half-long presidential brief from the C.I.A., the title of which was “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.†Significantly, Clarke and his team were not shown it.
Finally, on September 4, when the principals were back in the capital from traveling and their summer vacations, they held a meeting, in which most of Clarke’s ideas were provisionally accepted as policy. As the world knows, it was too late. Seven days later al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.
When asked why he had not requested to brief the president himself-- as Rice had testified—Clarke maintains he did, back in January, but Rice told him Bush would not be briefed unless there was a new policy he needed to make a decision on. “They’re very protective of this president.†Clark says. “He meet son a regular basis with only about a half-dozen senior White House people, who as a result wield tremendous influence.
Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.

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The government has always been getting word that we're going to be attacked and usually nothing happens. Unfortuately on September 11, 2001 the threat was carried out and we were attacked and innocent people died. How were we to know terrorists would really use our own airline planes as weapons to attack us with? Before 9/11 did you think that could be a possibility? I didn't.
Edited 9/19/2004 2:01 pm ET ET by jma927
Too bad everything he claims in his book has been totally discredited by his own words.
Also, too bad that the conversation he supposedly had with Condi Rice he tried to have several times with Sandy Berger & John Deutch, who totally ignored him.
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_8555.shtml
A funny thing happened on the way to the 9/11-commission coronation of Richard Clarke. FOX News reporter Jim Angle changed the course of the hearings, and perhaps history. In dramatic fashion, roughly two hours before would-be star witness Richard Clarke was to testify, the reporter released both transcripts and a tape recording from a conference call interview with Clarke from August 2002 on the FOX News Channel. The bombshell release had Clarke praising the Bush plan to fight terrorism, and that contradicted much of what Clarke had already said in interviews and would soon testify to under oath.
The 2002 comments by Clarke were earth shattering considering his ‘World Tour’ to promote his book “Against All Enemies” was full throttle with radio, television and print interviews. Clarke also had a scheduled stop at the 9/11 hearings where his book had already been waved to cameras and touted by some committee members as a sort of ‘holy gospel’ on their perceived failures of the president to fight terrorism. Many in the mainstream media had given Clarke rock star treatment, and even though that treatment continued, the Angle tape recording gave much needed background context on Clarke.
Some chose to ignore it, but many others did not.
The scoop was so important that FOX News broke into Sandy Berger’s testimony at the commission at roughly 11:35am EST on Wednesday with Jim Angle explaining on camera live where the recording came from and how it came to be released. It was an incredible scoop for FOX News and Jim Angle and playing the tape caused a bit of a stir among the media and a credibility gap for Clarke for many observers.
And with good reason, the first entry from the 2002 conference call attributed to Clarke was enough to discredit him among many critics. Clarke began on the tape, “Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.”
No plan from Clinton passed to Bush. That’s not the news that had been reported.
Angle not only had the transcript but the self-proclaimed ‘pack rat’ obviously had archived the tape and had a clear audio recording of Clarke praising the president’s policies with such direct statements as “ add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.” Clarke concluded his prepared statements on the tape with yet another striking contradiction, “ then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda.”
Not exactly what Clarke had been saying for the last week.
Angle explained that the comments came from an interview where Clarke knew he was being taped but the interview was considered “on background.” That is an arrangement used often by the media where the source (in this case Richard Clarke) provides information to reporters on the condition of anonymity. At the time, the National Security Council (NSC) asked that his quotes be attributed to an unnamed official. Angle later explained that the NSC lifted that restriction and gave FOX News permission to run the tape, and release the transcripts.
LOL! No, I was anticipating someone would ask for proof that Richard Clarke has been discredited by his own words. Whether you like my source or not, the fact is Clarke is on tape-ON TAPE, so this is really not a question of reliability of source-directly contradicting his 9/11 testimony, both that the Clinton administration passed along some great counter-terrorism plan that the Bush administration ignored, as well as his testimony that Bush made terrorism LESS of a priority than Clinton did. He is recorded telling a reporter the exact opposite of both of these statements. He has been bi-partisanly chided by the 9/11 commission for turning the proceedings into a partisan circus of a book tour.
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Yes, Clarke is on tape giving a background briefing to the press when he was a member of the Bush administration, but he does not directly contradict his testimony and I found his explaination to be perfectly sound, as did many members of the commission:
BEN-VENISTE: I just wanted to say that having sat in on two days of debriefings with you, Mr. Clarke, and having seen excerpts from your book, other than questions you weren't asked, I have not perceived any substantive differences between what you have said to us and what has been quoted from your published work. Having said that, I'll cede my time to Congressman Roemer, if he'll give me his time with Condoleezza Rice.
Clarke's main accuser over the book and the background briefing (which the White House magically declassified so that Fox News could have it's "scoop") was Governer Thompson. Here's their second exchange, which ended in practically a standing O. for Clarke:
THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing, as Senator Kerrey has now described it, for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not?
CLARKE: No. I think there is a very fine line that anyone who's been in the White House, in any administration, can tell you about. And that is when you are special assistant to the president and you're asked to explain something that is potentially embarrassing to the administration, because the administration didn't do enough or didn't do it in a timely manner and is taking political heat for it, as was the case there, you have a choice. Actually, I think you have three choices. You can resign rather than do it. I chose not to do that. Second choice is...
THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned because you were frustrated.
CLARKE: I was, at that time, at the request of the president, preparing a national strategy to defend America's cyberspace, something which I thought then and think now is vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis in one place or other while discussing the facts on this particular news story.
The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them.
In any event, the third choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did.
I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration.
THOMPSON: But you will admit that what you said in August of 2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book?
CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect.
THOMPSON: Well, what it suggests to me is that there is one standard of candor and morality for White House special assistants and another standard of candor and morality for the rest of America.
CLARKE: I don't get that. I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics.
CLARKE: Well, I...
(APPLAUSE)
THOMPSON: I'm not a Washington insider. I've never been a special assistant in the White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it there.
•••
Here's the whole transcript: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html
And here's Clarke's longer, first exchange with Thompson:
JAMES THOMPSON, COMMISSION MEMBER: Mr. Clarke, as we sit here this afternoon, we have your book and we have your press briefing of August 2002. Which is true?
CLARKE: Well, I think the question is a little misleading.
The press briefing you're referring to comes in the following context: Time magazine had published a cover story article highlighting what your staff briefing talks about. They had learned that, as your staff briefing notes, that there was a strategy or a plan and a series of additional options that were presented to the national security adviser and the new Bush team when they came into office.
Time magazine ran a somewhat sensational story that implied that the Bush administration hadn't worked on that plan. And this, of course, coming after 9/11 caused the Bush White House a great deal of concern.
So I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush White House to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of facts in a way that minimized criticism of the administration. And so I did.
Now, we can get into semantic games of whether it was a strategy, or whether it was a plan, or whether it was a series of options to be decided upon. I think the facts are as they were outlined in your staff briefing.
THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic games. You said, the Bush administration decided, then, you know, mid-January -- that's mid- January, 2001 -- to do 2 things: one, vigorously pursue the existing the policy -- that would be the Clinton policy -- including all of the lethal covert action findings which we've now made public to some extent. Is that so? Did they decide in January of 2001 to vigorously pursue the existing Clinton policy?
CLARKE: They decided that the existing covert action findings would remain in effect.
THOMPSON: OK. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. Now, that seems to indicate to me that proposals had been sitting on the table in the Clinton administration for a couple of years, but that the Bush administration was going to get them done. Is that a correct assumption?
CLARKE: Well, that was my hope at the time. It turned out not to be the case.
THOMPSON: Well, then why in August of 2002, over a year later, did you say that it was the case?
CLARKE: I was asked to make that case to the press. I was a special assistant to the president, and I made the case I was asked to make.
THOMPSON: Are you saying to be you were asked to make an untrue case to the press and the public, and that you went ahead and did it?
CLARKE: No, sir. Not untrue. Not an untrue case. I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done. And as a special assistant to the president, one is frequently asked to do that kind of thing. I've done it for several presidents.
THOMPSON: Well, OK, over the course of the summer, they developed implementation details. The principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold. Did they authorize the increase in funding five-fold?
CLARKE: Authorized but not appropriated.
THOMPSON: Well, but the Congress appropriates, don't they, Mr. Clarke?
CLARKE: Well, within the executive branch, there are two steps as well. In the executive branch, there's the policy process which you can compare to authorization, which is to say we would like to spend this amount of money for this program. And then there is the second step, the budgetary step, which is to find the offsets. And that had not been done. In fact, it wasn't done until after September 11th.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Pakistan, was the policy on Pakistan changed?
CLARKE: Yes, sir it was.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?
CLARKE: Yes, sir.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, was that changed?
CLARKE: Well, let me back up. I said yes to the last two answers. It was changed only after September 11th. It had gone through an approvals process. It was going through an approvals process with the deputies committee. And they had approved it -- The deputies had approved those policy changes. It had then gone to a principals committee for approval, and that occurred on September 4th. Those three things which you mentioned were approved by the principals. They were not approved by the president, and therefore the final approval hadn't occurred until after September 11th.
THOMPSON: But they were approved by people in the administration below the level of the president, moving toward the president. Is that correct?
CLARKE: Yes, so over the course of many, many months, they went through several committee meetings at the sub-Cabinet level. And then there was a hiatus. And then they went to finally on September 4th, a week before the attacks, they went to the principals for their approval. Of course, the final approval by the president didn't take place until after the attacks.
THOMPSON: Well is that eight-month period unusual?
CLARKE: It is unusual when you are being told every day that there is an urgent threat.
THOMPSON: Well, but the policy involved changing, for example, the policy on Pakistan, right? So you would have to involve those people in the administration who had charge of the Pakistani policy, would you not?
CLARKE: The secretary of state has, as a member of the principals committee, that kind of authority over all foreign policy issues.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, that would have been DOD?
CLARKE: No. Governor, that would have been the CIA.
But again, all of the right people to make those kinds of changes were represented by the five or six people on the principals committee.
THOMPSON: But they were also represented on the smaller group, were they not, the deputies committee?
CLARKE: But they didn't have the authority to approve it. They only had the authority to recommend it further up the process.
THOMPSON: Well, is policy usually made at the level of the principals committee before it comes up?
CLARKE: Policy usually originates in working groups. Recommendations and differences then are floated up from working groups to the deputies committee. If there are differences there, policy recommendations and differences are then floated up to the principals. And occasionally, when there is not a consensus at the principals level, policy recommendations and options, or differences, go to the president. And the president makes these kinds of decisions.
By law, in fact, many of the kinds of decisions you're talking about can only be made by the president.
THOMPSON: And you said that the strategy changed from one of rollback with al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, which I presume is the Clinton policy, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda, that is in fact the time line. Is that correct?
CLARKE: It is, but it requires a bit of elaboration. As your staff brief said, the goal of the Delenda Plan was to roll back al Qaeda over the course of three to five years so that it was just a nub of an organization like Abu Nidal that didn't threaten the United States.
I tried to insert the phrase early in the Bush administration in the draft NSPD that our goal should be to eliminate al Qaeda. And I was told by various members of the deputies committee that that was overly ambitious and that we should take the word "eliminate" out and say "significantly erode."
And then, following 9/11, we were able to go back to my language of eliminate, rather than significantly erode. And so, the version of the national security presidential decision directive that President Bush finally got to see after 9/11, had my original language of "eliminate," not the interim language of "erode."
THOMPSON: And you were asked when was...
KEAN: Governor, one more question.
THOMPSON: When was that presented to the president? And you answered: the president was briefed throughout this process.
CLARKE: Yes. The president apparently asked, on one occasion that I'm aware of, for a strategy. And when he asked that, he apparently didn't know there was a strategy in the works. I, therefore, was told about this by the national security adviser.
I came back to her and said, well, there is a strategy; after all, it's basically what I showed you in January. It stuck in the deputies committee. She said she would tell the president that, and she said she would try to break it out of the deputies committee.
THOMPSON: So you believed that your conference with the press in August of 2002 is consistent with what you've said in your book and what you've said in press interviews the last five days about your book?
CLARKE: I do. I think the think that's obviously bothering you is the tenor and the tone. And I've tried to explain to you, sir, that when you're on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible.
THOMPSON: Well, with all respect, Mr. Clarke, I think a lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this.
Okay...Clarke basically said he lied on the tape to make the administration look good-months later after he was forced out and admittedly not too happy about it, he did a 180 degree turnaround in his book.
"No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone."
He refers to the opposing statements as "highlighting the positive" and as differences in "emphasis and tone", but basically his statements directly contradict each other. In the tape he says -There was no plan passed from the Clinton adminsitration. In his book he claims the Clinton administration passed down a comprehensive plan that the Bush administration ignored. In the tape he says the Bush administration stepped up anti-terrorism spending five fold. In the the book he says the Bush administration drastically scaled back attention and financing to fighting terrorism. So which is it? These are hardly shades of gray here. Perhaps he was lying on the tape and is telling the truth now-the problem is when people LIE, whether currently or formerly, they lose their credibility and thus make it very difficult for others to discern which are the lies and which are the truths.
And Clarke wonders why his credibility is shot? He can thank himself for that.
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I think you need to re-read the transcript.
Personally I don't characterize directly opposing statements as "spin", but I guess we all haev our own definitions of the word.
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